The carrier liquid removing unit in the wet type electrographic printer is disposed downstream of a developing unit in the rotary direction of the photoconductor drum. With its carrier liquid removing roller placed with a given spacing from or in pressure contact with the peripheral surface of the photoconductor drum, the carrier liquid removing roller is rotated so that its peripheral surface moves in an identical direction in which the peripheral surface of the photoconductor drum moves, to remove an excessive carrier liquid of the liquid toner supplied onto the photoconductor drum surface in the developing unit, thereby making proper the toner density of the liquid toner supplied onto the photoconductor drum surface.
The axial distance between the carrier liquid removing roller and the photoconductor drum must be kept constant at a given distance to keep proper the gapping space or nip pressure between the carrier liquid removing roller surface and the photoconductor drum surface.
The carrier liquid removing roller so far used in a carrier liquid removing unit of this sort is provided at its opposite axial ends with auxiliary rollers coaxially which are rotated in contact with the peripheral surface of the photoconductor drum while being spring biased to set positioning of the carrier liquid removing roller relative to the photoconductor drum (see JP H01-43307 B).
In the conventional carrier liquid removing unit mentioned above, for the convenience of maintaining the proximity at a fixed distance of the carrier liquid removing roller from the photoconductor drum, there exist problems that their respective contacting surfaces which need to be of a certain hardness wear as they contact and with the progress of such wear the accuracy of the proximity at the fixed distance may deteriorate, that its manufacturing cost increases due to the need for its high-precision components and an increase of the necessary parts and that the influences of deterioration in rotational accuracy and surface state of the carrier liquid removing roller sides cannot be eliminated. Besides, problems likewise arise if there is an imperfect manufacturing accuracy such as a runout of the rollers themselves.
Made to resolve these problems, the present invention has as of its objects to provide a wet type electrophotographic printer whereby an excessive carrier liquid subsequent to development on the surface of a photoconductive drum can be removed to obtain homogeneous images, without being affected by an error in rotational accuracy caused in assembling such as carrier liquid removing roller and so forth in the manufacture and/or by their changes with time.